Team criticises £8k charge for player's memorial bench

Friends, family and teammates of a 33-year-old woman who died in 2025 have criticised a council for charging £8,000 to install and maintain a commemorative bench.

When she learned her cancer diagnosis was terminal, one of Holly Bedford's last wishes was to have a bench overlooking the fields where she played football for Plainmoor Ladies FC in Torquay, Devon.

Holly's teammates were unhappy at the cost and eventually managed to bypass Torbay Council and install a bench themselves, with the help of local carpenters and tradesmen on land leased to the men's team.

The council has previously been criticised for the amount it charges for benches - it is currently working on a new pricing policy.

Emma Quaintance, centre-half at Plainmoor Ladies, forged a lasting friendship with Holly, who played at right back.

"It was football that brought us together," she said. "Holly loved football and loved the team."

Holly played for Plainmoor Ladies for about five years before she became ill in 2024 and died in May 2025.

Emma said: "What she went through was just heart-breaking.

"We really wanted to fulfil her last wish and it was also a place for us and her family and friends to come and reflect and remember and feel close to her - it doesn't make anything better but it's just a bit more comforting to have that place."

The team along with family and friends started to raise money but, finding it difficult to raise the necessary £8,000, local builders and carpenters helped them to put a bench in place on the playing fields in June, on the basis the land is leased to the men's football team.

Emma said: "Now that I know I've fulfilled one of her wishes, it's just everything to me because she deserved everything."

She said it was "not right" that "grieving family and friends" should have to raise such a sum of money for a commemorative bench.

The money raised has been used to pay for the bench with the remainder going towards another bench the family want to install in the Cockington area of the town.

Torbay Council charges £8,000 for the installation, repair and maintenance of a commemorative bench for 25 years in residential locations and parks - Zone 2 - and £12,000 in premium areas such as ones with coastal views - Zone 1.

The council set out a draft revised policy in June with charges of £3,000 in Zone 2 and £6,000 in Zone 1 for but some councillors opposed the two-tier system and the authority is yet to agree on what the new policy should look like.

In the neighbouring local authority of Teignbridge, people are charged up to £1,885 for installation and maintenance, with benches being repainted every four to six years, and Westminster City Council charges £1,625 for 10 years in prime London locations.

The council has also been removing commemorative plaques from benches around Torquay and plans to remove a plaque honouring a former councillor.

Fred Stone served as a councillor in the St Marychurch ward of Torquay in the 1980s.

A bench with a plaque remembering him as "the people's champion" has had a sign attached to it warning it will be removed.

His daughter Rachel, who lives in Australia, said: "I always feel proud telling the people who sit on the bench that it was dedicated to my Dad."

She said: "A simple plaque on a bench means so much more to the families of Torbay and the memories of loved ones - it just makes me really sad to think of them being erased."

Swithin Long, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Barton with Watcombe, said the prospect of the council "capitalising on people's grief" was "horrifying".

He said Torbay Council's policy on commemorative benches was "out of kilter with what is happening nationwide" and was fighting to change the policy.

The BBC asked Torbay Council why it was planning to remove the plaque in honour of a former councillor but did not receive a response.

Babbacombe Downs, less than a mile away from Fred Stone's bench, has the sort of glorious views out over the sea and cliffs that have made Torquay famous as a seaside resort.

Dozens of benches line the paths and viewing areas through the downs and until recently each had a plaque commemorating a loved one for whom the area had a special significance.

As part of the review of its policy on commemorative benches Torbay Council has removed most of the plaques from the benches and has instead added them to what the council calls a "shared memorial feature" in a viewing area.

There are more than 1,000 benches in the whole Torbay Council area and, according to a council report, in hundreds of cases there is no information stored on who originally ordered the bench or commemorative plaque.

The BBC asked Torbay Council when a revised strategy on benches was expected to be issued but there was no response.

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